We hiked up from Zinal in the rain and when we got to the hut it was snowing. The hut was run by the meanest, grouchiest old guy I've ever met in the Alps. He refused to heat the hut at all and a dozen of us sat in our wet clothes. The whole place was barely warmer than outside and our collective hate for this old crust of a human being grew steadily as the hours progressed.

The next morning we had perfect weather and a straight-forward climb across the glacier. From there, the ascent on the new snow up the slopes was nice but long. There is nothing to give a sense of progress, just two hours of the same gradual incline. The view from the summit however was one-in-a-million; truly awesome!

1. Day
Zinal (1670m) to the Cabane de Tracuit (3256m) = 3:42 for 1586m ascent

2. Day
Cabane de Tracuit to the Bishorn Summit (4153m) = 3:32 for 897m ascent
Time on the summit = 0:25 minutes
Descent to the hut = 2:06
Time at the hut = 0:33
Hut down to the car = 2:29

Over night at Cabane De Tracuit 3256 m and a storm! However by 4-00 am all quiet and sky clear. Big Glacier ascent, plenty of crevasses evident and not so! Rope of Three after meeting a fellow Brit Solo in the hut. Fresh snow on upper reaches but safe. Made Summit ahead of time wonderful views of Weisshorn. Easy descent of less than two hours back to hut. Followed by hut walk out. Great Day.

To round off a very full three week climbing trip back in August 1993, my friends and I decided to squeeze in another 4000er by quickly nipping up the Bishorn. The Tracuit Hut was fully booked, so resulting in us having a most pleasurable and memorable trip on a simple peak. We would climb it at night.

The four of us decided to bring up food and a light tent which we pitched some distance below the hut. Arriving mid-afternoon, we managed a meal and an hour or so of sleep before gearing up and heading upwards to the hut. Arriving sometime around 9pm, we marched determinedly past the few climbers who were outside enjoying the late evening air and who looked incredulous that we mad English should be considering climbing at this time of day. But what a time of day it was!

The warm sun was setting in a clear sky. Despite our best efforts we couldn't quite keep pace with the lengthening shadows as the sun began to set. Tantalisingly, the sunlit snow was always some 500 metres ahead of us. Instead of climbing upwards in the last rays of sunshine, as we had hoped, we were soon cramponing on rapidly freezing ice.

As darkness fell, the skies filled with stars. The milky way shone out with a radiance we so rarely see outside of the mountain ranges. But then we saw other stars - shooting stars. Not one, not two, but over the course of our climb many, many dozens. It was mid August - the Tracuit Hut we later discovered was extra full with people who had come to watch the Perseid meteor show, about which we had known absolutely nothing until that night, but which had been forecast to be extra special that year. Luckily the glacier was smooth and simple to move across as I think I spent more time with my headtorch pointing skyward than I did checking the route ahead.

We arrived on the summit, cold but exhilarated around 1.30am, having seen more meteors than most people ever see in a lifetime. The bitter cold soon drove us back down from the summit, down the dark glacier, down past the hut with its sleeping, snoring occupants, and finally back to our little tent at three or four in the morning, I no longer remember.

But I do remember turning back for one final look at the silhouette of the hut against the starry sky. Just at the moment one final meteor streaked majestically across the sky, breaking into two with a burst of brilliant white, as if in some final farewell.

Our party included young Simon, a strong 15 year old who was clearly much at home in the mountains, as were his parents, Steve and Pam. This was our final climb together. I returned to England the following day whilst they remained in Switzerland for another week of climbing.

I never saw them all together again. Steve was killed the following summer on Mont Blanc, and young Simon who was with him at the time has not surprisingly ever climbed again. As the years go by, Pam's and my dream of climbing all the alpine 4000m peaks looks unlikely ever to be achieved. We may have done most of Europe’s highest summits, but our simple mistake was to leave the hardest to the end, and so too late. But that sweet, magical night on the Bishorn showed that even the easiest of alpine peaks is capable of leaving the most enduring of memories.

Approached via the Turtmann valley to the Tracuit hut in 2 days. Summit day was perfect - clear skies and nice views. The upper slopes were quite icy. Very long and nice descent from the summit back to Zinal. It was possible to ski all the way down to the last parking area (near camping) in Zinal.

Successful climb from the Tracuit Hut, with two other partners. Windy but clear conditions. Surprisingly, there were many -and big- crevasses on the glacier, just in the neigbourhood of the hut (just stepping into it and there were the big abbys into the ice). Somehow tricky walk through this part. Many people.

26/7/2011
Climbed again with two partners. We were using a short window of good weather among periods of clouds, rain, snow. Still a beautiful day in the mountains! We were the first of the hut to reach the summit, partly opennig the track in deep snow! Great!!

"Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife into the piano. The woodworms are so bad and eat hell out of all furniture that you can always claim the woodworms did it."
--Ernest Hemingway